Mexico’s opposition selects Xochitel Gálvez as presidential candidate | News
Galvez is seen by many analysts as better placed to challenge Amlou’s left-wing Movement for National Renewal in the 2024 race.
Mexican Senator Xochitel Gálvez secured the main opposition’s nomination for next year’s presidential elections, after winning the support of a major party that abandoned its rival.
Galvez’s success pushes Mexico a step closer to the prospect of its first female president, with recent opinion polls indicating that the dominant ruling party of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is leaning towards choosing a female candidate to succeed him.
Gálvez is seen by many analysts as best able to challenge the left-wing National Renewal movement led by Amlo (Morena). Her victory came after the head of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Ex-Governors of Mexico, said the Institutional Revolutionary Party would support her instead of her candidate, Beatriz Paredes.
“This is just the beginning,” Galvez said on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday, as the opposition published poll results showing it had more support than its rival, the Institutional Revolutionary Party. “No one will stop us.”
However, the manner in which the PRI dumped Paredes diluted the luster of what appeared to be an imminent victory for Galvez backed by voters as the race for the opposition alliance’s presidential ticket was due to end with a ballot on Sunday.
Because of the poll results, his party now fully backs Gálvez, Alejandro Moreno, president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, told a news conference, surrounded by grim-faced party colleagues. Paredes, a senator and leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, was notably absent.
Even some of Gálvez’s allies said the PRI’s intervention in the race was unlikely to inspire confidence in the process.
.@Beatriz Paredes She is an intelligent woman and a high politician.
Your talent and ability are very important for the vast front of Mexico.
Learn about your generosity and compromise with Mexico.
– Xochitl Galvez Ruiz (@XochitlGalvez) August 31, 2023
translation: @Beatriz Paredes She is an intelligent woman with a political stature. His talent and abilities will be very important to the broad front of Mexico. “I appreciate your generosity and commitment to Mexico,” Galvez wrote on Wednesday.
active opposition
A lively and humorous interviewer, Galvez represents the centre-right National Action Party, a longtime rival and now ally of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party. The PRD had said earlier that it supported Galvez.
It is widely seen as the contender capable of doing its best to weaken Morena’s iron grip on national politics, which has inflicted the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the Popular National Party and the Democratic Democratic Party on a string of heavy defeats.
Voicing his support for business even as López Obrador rails against corporate greed, Galvez, 60, boasts a charisma that can transcend class divisions. She, like the president, also connects with poor Mexicans better than many of her peers.
Since entering the race last June, Galvez has energized the opposition.
Known for her enthusiasm and skill in creating publicity, Galvez has framed her show as one of triumphs over adversity, describing how she became a successful entrepreneur after growing up in a poor family with local roots.
As a girl, she sold gelatin and tamales to help her family. She worked as a clerk at the local civil registry office as a teenager. At the age of 16, she moved to Mexico City by herself and worked as a telephone operator until she won a scholarship that allowed her to study computer science. Then she created a technology company, which won government contracts, as López Obrador recently noted.
The MDC is due to announce its candidate on September 6, after the national elections. Mexico City’s mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, has led recent polls of voters, fueling speculation that she could take on Gálvez.
